#341 Cornelius Vanderbilt (Tycoon's War)

**David Senra** (0:00)
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Cornelius Vanderbilt was only interested in two things, making money and winning.
Often, he temporarily subjugated the need for the former to achieve the latter.
Vanderbilt had an unquenchable thirst for conquest. There was nothing he would not do to conquer. Cornelius Vanderbilt and his enemy William Walker were alike in several respects. Both were opportunists. Both were prepared to suffer through short-term adversity to achieve long-term victory.
Both Vanderbilt and Walker were loyal to those who were loyal to them, attracting lifelong allegiance from their closest associates.
But that's where their similarities ended. William Walker, because of his limited resources, was prepared to give his trust too readily to achieve his ends, giving his trust to men who turned out to be liars, braggarts, and fools.
The cunning Vanderbilt was a much better judge of character. And here is where the two men differed most. If you crossed William Walker, he would banish you from his world. If you crossed Vanderbilt, he would set out to conquer you, no matter how long it took.
Ultimately, that conquest would be signified by a surrender, and that surrender would usually take the form of a deal.
At one time or another, Vanderbilt got into bed with all of his enemies, if they were prepared to submit to him, and most of them were.
The exception was William Walker. He was not a businessman. He achieved his short-lived successes using war and the law as his tools.
And unlike Vanderbilt's other adversaries, William Walker was not afraid of Vanderbilt when he should have been.
That is an excerpt from the book that we talked about today, which is Tycoon's War, How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer, who in turn had previously invaded multiple countries. That's William Walker. And this book was written by Stephen Dando-Collins. So I first read this book about five years ago. And the great thing about the book is it's a biography, really a joint biography of Vanderbilt and William Walker, but it starts right in the middle of the story. And so it'll give us background on both the early life of Cornelius Vanderbilt and William Walker, but the entire story, 90% of the book is about this war that happens when William Walker invades Nicaragua, winds up making himself president of the country and then making this very fatal mistake of taking some of Cornelius' property and other business assets that Cornelius had in Nicaragua. And so I would say out of all the people that you and I study together on this podcast, I don't think there is, in many cases, there's some kind of historical equivalent, there's somebody that was very similar to that person that lived before them, maybe they were influenced and used their ideas. I can't think of a historical equivalent to Cornelius of Vanderbilt. To me, he's less of an entrepreneur because the way he dominated, so I mean, he was obviously one of the best entrepreneurs to ever live, but he was so powerful, influential and wealthy. It's almost like he was a sovereign. I would consider, when I think of Cornelius Vanderbilt, who would you compare people living today? I wouldn't think of other entrepreneurs. I would think of people at the state level. I would think of almost like Vladimir Putin is actually the person that comes to mind. And this sentence gives you an insight into why that would be the case. Cornelius Vanderbilt, the descendants of poor Dutch immigrants would die in 1877 possessing more money than was held by the US. Treasury.